Never has there been a time when Americans needed to rage more against the machine. As we weather a perfect storm of a Great Depression-like financial meltdown, a war that's more costly (in so many ways) than Vietnam, and daily scandals that make Watergate look like a Boy Scout prank, guitarist, singer and songwriter Tom Morello is raging hard, on stage, on CD, and on the streets, where he's repeatedly risked his own life and liberty fighting what he believes are the true forces of evil.

A Harvard Political Science graduate, Morello has seen democracy in action both as an insider, while working for a United States senator, and on the frontlines. He faced a pitched battle with 700 riot police while participating in protests outside the Pepsi Center in Denver during the recent Democratic National Convention and days later was threatened with arrest while attempting to perform with his band at a rally on the Capital Lawn in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. Despite skirmishes with the authorities at both events, Morello refused to be silenced.

Having expressed his anger loudly with his bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, in 2007 he found a quieter voice with One Man Revolution, his first solo release under The Nightwatchman moniker. On September 30, The Nightwatchman returns with a more introspective album, The Fabled City, but (somewhat conversely) this time he's amped-up and ready to rock.

Nicole Powers: Originally the Nightwatchman was your political folk alter ego, but this album's a lot more personal isn't it?

Tom Morello: Definitely. I felt both musically and lyrically the themes have been expanded on this. The first Nightwatcman record was predominantly folk music, on this one there's added instrumentation. It's got much more of my rock side woven into it, from riffs to some guitar solos. Lyrically over the course of the last couple of years there was a lot of personal loss, family members passed away, some very close friends, even my dog died, and so that has a way of seeping into the lyrics. While the One Man Revolution record was kind of a call to arms, this record was a way of dealing with loss and trying to find hope and redemption through music.

NP: There's a lot to be said for the quietness of the Nightwatchman project. You don't have to be loud to be heard, and sometimes volume can be a barrier to comprehension.

TM: Absolutely. That's an observation that I've made in doing these Nightwatchmen songs, from initially playing them at open mic nights at clubs and coffee houses anonymously, to touring last year and playing big festival shows, sometimes an acoustic guitar, three chords and the truth can be just as heavy -- or heavier -- than a wall of Marshall stacks.

NP: On this upcoming tour you're going to be doing half the set with nylon strings, and the second half plugged in.

TM: Yeah, I was inspired to do that by playing the Justice Tour in the spring with some friends of mine. The show would begin with acoustic sets and would end with a raucous amplified jam at the end. I've already played a couple of Nightwatchman shows with this new formula. It's really exciting because it allows every part of what I do to be involved in the show, from the dark acoustic songs to really full-on electric guitar mayhem in a way that's even more expansive than my work with Rage Against the Machine or Audioslave because the guitar solos are not confined to three and a half minute songs.

NP: And this time around you're actually putting your name to the project, you're owning it fully.

TM: The first time around I wanted there to be a clear distinction between what I'm doing with my solo stuff and my rock work, 'cause otherwise, if I put out a solo record just under the name Tom Morello, people would expect it to be a jazz-metal instrumental odyssey, and that's not what I was doing. But with this one I feel much more comfortable blurring the distinction between the two, and certainly on the tour there's going to be a heavy dose of the electric guitar playing as well as the folk music.

NP: One of your new songs talks about how "the devil's not the king of hell." If he's not, who is? Dick Cheney? Karl Rove? George Bush?

TM: [laughs] I'm going to leave that for the listener to figure out. But that's a song I wrote about rendition and torture. It's a song about the moments of peace between the electric shocks, and the intake of breath between the waterboarding sessions, and it led me to the conclusion that perhaps the devil is not the king of hell.

NP: So getting into politics, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about what happened on the Minnesota Capital Lawn at the convention with the aborted Rage Against the Machine performance? Wikipedia says it was a scheduling thing; you arrived at 6.40 p.m. and the permit was only until 7 p.m., which is essentially why it was pulled.

TM: Hell, no.

NP: Well this is why I'm asking. Please, set the record straight.

TM: Rage Against the Machine showed up at exactly the time we were scheduled to perform, and as soon as we got out of our vehicle we were immediately surrounded by riot police who told us if we approached the stage we'd be arrested for playing music. They said that we were not on a permit for the day's show. We produced the permit and showed them that none of the artists that had already been playing for the previous four hours, including Anti-Flag and Michael Franti, none of the artists were listed on the permits. They just tried to use that as an excuse to stop us from playing. We were there right on time to play and they physically barred us from getting onto the stage because they were afraid of the music we were going to play.

Imagine if in Beijing during the Olympics a Chinese band whose songs were critical of the government was told they'd be arrested if they attempted to sing those songs in a public forum -- there would have been an international human rights outcry. But that's exactly what happened in Minnesota. But this is a band that has made a living singing a song that goes "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me," so we weren't about to go back to the hotel with our tails between our legs. So we out-flanked the police line and went into the middle of the crowd, and played a couple of songs passing a bull horn back and forth, and it seemed to go over pretty well.

NP: America, the land of the free, that's one of the most dishonest tag lines, but people buy into it.

TM: Well it was pretty clear that we weren't able to express our guaranteed First Amendment right in St. Paul. But like all rights, you can't take them for granted, and when they're denied to you, you have to take matters into your own hands, which is exactly what we did.

NP: It's hard. The electoral system is breaking down. This current election's become a farce. I know that you've said yourself that the system has become a problem, do you think it's time for the people to invoke the right of revolution set out in the Declaration of Independence?

TM: Well I think that some of the Founding Fathers would definitely agree that the way things currently are now has strayed pretty far from the way that they envisioned democracy. I mean it's a joke that the elections that we have here are basically run by public relations firms, and that every word that comes out of each candidates mouth is choreographed by a billion dollar corporation to hit a particular demographic and tickle their electoral funny bone in a particular way. One party's in favor of freedom and opposed to evil, and the other party's opposed to evil and in favor of freedom. It's just a joke.

NP: No party at this point seems to support the working poor who basically keep this country trucking along. You've very publicly supported the Zapatista movement, which is an organization that supports the poor in Mexico [RATM performed in front of a EZLN banner at Coachella in 2007], with our standard of living spiraling downwards, and with this ridiculous bipartisan Wall Street bailout, where the poor are expected to bail out the disgustingly rich, do you think it's time we had a party that truly represented the poor here?

TM: I certainly think that the narrow spectrum of ideas that are represented by the two major corporate parties, Democrats and Republicans, do not represent the interests of the vast majority of America. It's not apathy why many Americans stay home on Election Day, it's because they don't have a candidate on Election Day. For two years I worked for U.S. Senator Alan Cranston from California, and while he had a lot of progressive ideas, he spent most of his time asking for money, and that money does not come for free.

Definitely there's a difference between the two candidates, an important difference that could mean life or death for many people both in the United States and around the globe, but I think there are more fundamental problems inherent in the system, and that's why I always feel much more comfortable working for particular issues that are important to me and organizing around human rights and economic justice and ending the war, rather than just putting my faith in one candidate or another.

NP: I feel that the working poor have such a small voice in society in general. It's the little stuff as well as the big stuff. For example, I went to a concert at the Nokia Theatre in Downtown L.A. the other night and parking was $25. I understand that someone may need to save up to see a show, but someone on minimum wage shouldn't have to blow half a day's wages just on parking.

TM: There's a great deal of exclusivity from the electoral process to parking for concerts.

NP: But it's part of the same thing. There's huge disconnect between even the middle class, never mind the rich, and those who are experiencing life on minimum wage, and they have no voice.

TM: That's what the song "The Fabled City" is about. It's about the fact that for millions, around the globe for billions, people are unable to become the people they were meant to be, and do the things that they were born to do, because of poverty. There's this consumerist idea of "The Fabled City," this consumer paradise, but there's an iron gate that runs around "The Fabled City" and the iron gate is closed.

NP: I know that you've gone on record as being skeptical about even Obama's abilities to enact enough change, what are your thoughts on that? I know that you have certain similarities in your backgrounds. You're both half Kenyan, you both attended Harvard...

TM: Both from Illinois. Like I say, I do believe there's a difference in the candidates, and, since racism is the great curse of America, it would certainly be a step in the direction of civilization, if, given our horrifically racist history, we were able to elect a semi-progressive African American to the highest office in the land. That would be historically significant. However there's a certain number of filters, in order to rise that high inevitable compromises have to be made.

You have to talk about the use of force against Iran, you have to say we have to up the war in Afghanistan, you take these hawkish positions of the death penalty, and things like that, things that I don't frankly know if Barack Obama, in his heart of hearts, believes in. But you certainly can't run for president and not say them the way the system is currently set up. Because the gatekeepers are the ones that hold the purse strings at the end of the day, and in order for anyone to rise that high there are inevitable compromises which I find distasteful. All the same, a McCain presidency is going to be just brutal, and God help us all if Sarah Palin ever rises to the highest office.

NP: What makes me so uncomfortable is that she's a hit with so much of America.

TM: It's like the proffers have been so dumbed down. It's run by public relations firms who realized the most popular shows, the things that Americans gravitate to the most are Dancing With The Stars. They need a candidate that could very well fit in on Dancing With The Stars. And the whole anti-intellectual current, if you're smart you can't possibly represent America, this is true of both McCain and Obama. They've spent half their photo ops in bars with their sleeves rolled up, Obama pretending to enjoy a Bud Light, and McCain pretending that he can stomach shaking hands with poor people.

NP: This fear of intellectualism really terrifies me. We've not seen that since Pol Pot in Cambodia.

TM: It's not an uncommon theme in American politics, at least from Reagan where it was charisma, and Bill Clinton, who was a very, very smart guy, but kind of dumbed it down and emphasized his charisma more than he did his intellectual abilities.

NP: I think the difference with this election is they're blatantly coming out and rebranding the word intellectual. They rebranded the American flag as Republican, they managed to turn liberal into a dirty word, and now they're doing the same with the word intellectual.

TM: Definitely. When I was watching the conventions on TV, the thing that made me most skeptical about the possibility of Obama becoming elected was when his wife was giving a speech. I grew up in small town Illinois, and I was trying to watch her speech through the eyes of the neighbors who I grew up with and the parents I grew up around, and I don't know that America has the ability to vote for a candidate whose wife is African American and smarter than they are. I hope that I'm wrong, it would mean that it's a different country than the one I grew up in, but we'll see.

NP: I can't see Michelle baking cookies like Hillary was forced to do, and I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing.

TM: Yes. [laughs]

NP: You spent time at both the conventions and saw democracy in action, were their any other vignettes that struck you as significant?

TM: Probably the most dramatic moment was at the DNC when we performed a show for the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Like political Pied Pipers, we led the ten thousand kids out of the venue, marched to the Pepsi Center in Denver where we were confronted with 700 riot police in full Darth Vader uniforms at the door of the Convention Center.

Originally our path was blocked. Just imagine it, 60 veterans in full military uniform like on the Marines' commercial, with the gold buttons and the white hats and the camouflage fatigues, marching in formation with ten thousand people through Denver. We were stopped by the riot police who said, "You're welcome to protest, but you have to do it in the free speech zone," which was an empty parking lot surrounded by a chain link fence. It was known as the freedom cage.

And so the veterans, who have seen horrors beyond our imagination, are not going to be intimidated by these police, so they decided to change the route of the march and march straight to the door of the Pepsi Center where they were blocked by 700 police in riot gear. After a long and heated negotiation the police said they were going to arrest the veterans and everybody else, and tear gas them, take everybody off the jail. At that point five of the officers walked off duty rather than raise a hand against the veterans.

The veterans decided that they were not going to go quietly and decided that they were going to march straight into the police line before the police had a chance to arrest them. At this point, very dramatically, someone sent from the Obama campaign came out and avoided the whole police versus veterans bloodbath at the door of the Pepsi Center and acceded to all their demands, to meet with Obama's veterans liaison, which is what they wanted...So it was a pretty huge victory.

NP: At the point when you have 700 riot police lined up against U.S. citizens, that's civil war. That's bigger than many battles of the American Civil War.

TM: It was pretty crazy, and it was a not uncommon theme throughout both conventions, with all of the riots in the streets. I guess one of the things that surprises me given the economic crimes at home and the war crimes abroad, why there's not more rioting in the streets when there's not conventions going on, but we'll see.